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‘Mental telepathy’ can be a broad term that encompasses numerous things. It typically means reading the thoughts between people without using normal senses. The difference is a huge between having an intuitive gut feeling and knowing information that could only be gathered by reading somebody’s mind. Very basic skills can be construed as mental telepathy but so can very complex. Different levels of mental telepathy can be summarized in this article.

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Kinesics, or non-verbal communication, occurs whenever two people communicate without speaking, using their eyes, body language, and facial expressions instead. This can range from simple messages like ‘go away’ to entire conversations. Any parent who has tried to communicate something to their spouse that they don’t want their children to hear has experienced this. Non-verbal communication is achieved easiest and most accurately between people who know each other well”siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives, and close friends.

This may not count as mental telepathy, as the two people are using their senses to communicate, just not verbally and this is correct. However, mental telepathy plays a role, because their minds are more attuned to each other because of extended exposure to the way the others mind may think and some predictability comes into play, so there is a sort of mental connection. Two people that know each other well enough to understand more subtle body language, or have created nonverbal signals to communicate, might be argued that it is not be classified as mental telepathy.

EMPATHY:

Through empathy it is possible to directly experience the emotions of others or connect on an emotional level. Putting yourself in another’s shoes’ and understanding how they feel is not something everybody is able to do. Training and practice can increase empathy. Imitating the emotions of others, even to the point of spontaneously laughing or crying is something actors and sociopaths can do everyday.

‘Sympathetic pain’”feeling another person’s pain as if it were your own is something expectant fathers mention, some claiming they can feel the mother’s labor pains at the same time she is experiencing them. If someone close to you is experiencing an overwhelming emotion, you may feel an echo of the same emotion inside you, and mothers often describe this uneasy feeling when their child has been injured. The phenomena of long distance empathy, where a person suddenly feels that someone close to them is in danger, even though they are not near the person at the time is common in other relationships, as well.

There are some skeptics and psychologists who scoff at these kind of incidents and call them the work of an overactive brain. In certain cases they may have a point because we can see the injury and the hurt. However in cases of long distance empathy where a person doesn’t even know that his loved one is injured or hurt, then they don’t have an explanation about why a person who cannot even see the other person can feel the pain.

SYMBOL AND OBJECT PROJECTION:

This is the thought transference of concrete symbols and objects between two minds. Mental telepathy at this level must by necessity move beyond the regular five senses, and often requires a designated sender and receiver, intense concentration, training, and practice.

Here the principle is that simpler concepts are easily communicated. For instance an animal is more difficult to communicate than a shape or color.

Zener cards often used in mental telepathy test are an example of this principle. Simple, concrete black-and-white symbols (a circle, square, star, plus sign, and three wavy lines), gives even a random guess a 20% chance of being right. On the other hand, a shared, known, limited set of concrete symbols may increase the coordination of the thoughts between sender and receiver. A success rate of 50% or higher (which have happened) can not be explained away by simple statistics, but may indicate a level of mental telepathy, instead.

ABSTRACT CONCEPTS

Mental telepathy at this level goes beyond simple colors and shapes to more abstract concepts like ideas, actions, or values. It is rare and difficult for telepaths to achieve this level, and experiments have shown that they have a lower success rate.

Telepathy shouldn’t be ruled out when it comes to animals that seem to communicate ideas to each other through non-verbal actions. Because animal brains lack prefrontal lobes, telepathy would probably not go beyond simplistic ideas such as hunger or danger signals, but many have seen two dogs look at each other and go running for an almost pre-decided location.

While humans may have once been capable of telepathy, as the species evolved and developed language, it was no longer needed as a form of communication. With the right stimulation humans may be able to call upon this dormant ability that includes abstract communication of ideas. Mental telepathy could be used to communicate, without the need for the use of the five senses.

However, there are some who feel that man may be able to develop ESP and telepathy and such psychic abilities in the near future. As man’s psychic powers grow it may be possible for the entire race to become telepathic in the future.